Commissioners: Licking County committed to transit in 2019

Licking County officials are considering bringing all the services of the transit program under the county's control after private company MV Transportation notified the county Sept. 19 it has decided to terminate its contract with the county.(Photo: Sara C. Tobias/The Advocate)Buy Photo

And that might mean bringing the entire transit system under control of the county.

Currently, the county owns the buses and has management, dispatch and maintenance staff and a private company was in charge of the bus drivers.

However, that private company, MV Transportation, notified the county Sept. 19 it has decided to terminate its contract with the county, but it will continue to serve until the end of the year.

County Commissioner Rick Black, who also serves as the chair of the county transit board, said while the board has not made an official decision, the consensus of the board is to peruse "going in-house."

Commissioner Tim Bubb said to a group of eight people who had come to the commissioners meeting with concerns about the future of public transit in Licking County that "it's very doable" for the county to take on the full transit service.

"We already have the fleet, we already have the administrative staff the maintenance staff, we have the building, we have the software," Bubb said. "All we're doing is talking about is taking the core body of drivers ... and just bringing them in as county employees instead."

Janet Greene, who attended the meeting Tuesday, said she no longer likes to drive at night. She recently traveled to Philadelphia and while its transit systems are free to seniors, it was difficult for her and her husband to use because mobility reasons.

"I would rather live here. It's a lot easier to live here but on the other hand, we are prisoners in our own homes," she said.

Black said it has been recommended by numerous agencies, including the Ohio Department of Transportation, that the county take on the full duties of the transit system.

Bubb said the county has used private companies for more than a decade for the drivers because they have expertise in terms of hiring and training.

"We're not really small but we're not like one of the big ones. We're right in the middle and maybe we're just a difficult thing for a professional transit company to do because it's hard maybe for them to justify the overhead to come in and run it," he said.

MV has not disclosed its reasons for terminating the contract, Black said.

Bubb said making the drivers employees of the county has been talked about before and there are pluses and minuses with it.

The county would have better control of the service if it is the one hiring, training and scheduling drivers, Bubb said.

"We have a relationship now where a vendor can in 90 days say 'see ya,' " Bubb said. "Now they'd be our employees so we'd have that control."

But on the other side Bubb said making the drivers county employees, the county would have to manage all those drivers. MV had 40 drivers working in the county, Black said.

"They quit on you, you have to find a replacement, you got to train them," Bubb said. "If one of them makes a mistake, you own it."